The atmosphere at the Stadio Olimpico was far from happy this past Saturday. The home side was losing against Torino, a team that had let in a total of 10 goals while managing only two goals in their most recent five league matches. Fans from the Curva Nord were wrapping up their ongoing dissent in an ongoing feud with chairman Claudio Lotito.
This Year's Efforts Unraveling?
Was Lazio's season coming unstitched, or had there never been a binding element keeping it intact to start with? Lazio reinstated Maurizio Sarri as manager this summer, only for him admitted that the board had omitted to inform him about a ban on new signings they were about to receive for financial irregularities. Speculation that he might quit were unfounded, but he did say that Lotito had "misled" him.
Lazio appeared equally disorganized on the pitch as behind the scenes, defeating Verona 4-0 and Genoa 3-0 but losing their other initial five matches, including the Rome derby. Throughout this period, it has been hard to ascertain if progress is being made or self-destructing.
The Youngster's Unexpected Presence
One individual remained positive throughout. Matteo Cancellieri was not even supposed to be at Lazio this year. He was on the previous campaign at Parma as a loanee and, early this summer, his owning club were advocating for him to remain there temporarily. The transfer ban led to a change of plans. Lazio could not afford to weaken their team with no new signings.
He joined in the first place under Sarri's first spell, then a 20-year-old alumnus of Verona's academy. He accumulated 20 matches in the league for Lazio in the 2022-23 season, all but one of those as a substitute. The club's longtime sporting director, Igli Tare, who left after that campaign, subsequently claimed Sarri of "promising everyone Cancellieri would be a star then never playing him."
Finding His True Position
Maybe Sarri was still trying to determine the exact type of his skill set. Billed as an attacking winger on arrival, Cancellieri yet was deployed for most of that campaign as a struggling deputy to Ciro Immobile as center forward. Across 63 games during spells with Empoli and Parma over the last two seasons, he scored seven times. Shoehorn
